Special editions

     I do enjoy the occasional posts that come under the 'Reading habits' category, as our varying attitudes to all things bookish are fascinating. Today I'm wondering about editions of books, special or multiple:
     Do you have more than one copy of any book, and if so, for what reason? Keen cooks often have a 'reading' copy of a particularly prized cookery book, kept safely away from spills and spatters, and a 'using' one in the kitchen, but are there other instances of this?
     Do you keep different editions of a book for sentimental reasons, or because of a preferred cover design, clearer print, etc.? Many people dislike film tie-in versions of books, say, so may acquire a second copy of a title with a more attractive cover but keep the first one because .....

 
     Or do you have a special edition of a book, and one you wouldn't part with, just because there's something unique about it? The book pictured here is an example of that. I've never read it, though I have often looked through it; it is an 1850 edition of Lockhart's Life of Scott which belonged to my grandfather, but it bears an inscription which shows that long before he came to own it it was given to a young man (whose name I can't quite decipher) "on the occasion of his leaving Eton" at Easter 1852, and the giver of this fine present whose youthful hand is on the flyleaf was Jane Austen's great-nephew Herbert Knatchbull-Hugessen.
    Most of our books are nothing like as grand as this one, but even the humblest, most battered copy can have meaning beyond its text and therefore keep its place on the shelf. And on the subject of shelves, that's the reason we may not keep our 'second' copies - regardless of their importance to us - just because we haven't the space!

Comments

[Dark Puss]

Dark Puss is certainly a "keen cook" but he has only one copy of any cookery book. I don't think I have a duplicate copy of any book (or have had), if I get a nicer copy of something I'll surely give away the one it replaces (space constraints would not permit anything else really).

Special copies, well there are a few. Sisters Under the Skin, by Norman Parkinson, has a particularly treasured inscription in it, my earliest printed book (16th C), a battered copy of Birks' famous work The Theory and Practice of Scintillation Counting given to me by a generous colleague who got it from the closing-down sale of the wonderful Lewis's Library and Bookshop in Gower St. Probably others, but being so unsentimental rather few I expect!

[Lisa]

Oh yes. I often have multiple editions of favorite books. The one that immediately comes to mind is To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I have quite a few editions of this book because it is my all-time favorite book. My most prized edition is a First Edition that my husband found for me on Ebay as an anniversary gift one year.

[Cornflower]

What a wonderful present, Lisa!

[adele geras]

I bought a special cheap edition of Dombey and Son to read while on holiday in Venice. We travelled by train and Dombey saw me through the whole week...and what a book it is! Amazing. I didn't want to subject the real copy of Dombey which sits on our shelf to the hazards of being shoved into handbags and laid on train-type reading tables etc. I left the copy behind in Paris hotel in the hope that some happy reader will find it and enjoy it as much as I did. Otherwise, I don't think I've got even one duplicate...my cookery books are some of them falling to pieces.

[Mrs. Pom]

I do not have multiple copies of books except for when my poor brain doesn't remember that I read it or bought it already, or some old favorites that I cannot find and had to replace. I do have certain books that I will never give away, especially novels read in college that are annotated with my notes. And my original copy of The Golden Notebook.

[B R Wombat]

Oh yes, we booklovers do tend to be attached to the actual, physical book. When I was very young, A Tale of Two Cities was the Sunday serial on BBC tv and I fell in love with Sydney Carton who was wonderfully played by John Wood. I then haunted secondhand bookshops and bought quite a few copies of Two Cities, if I found ones that especially appealed to me.

Since then, I've bought a few paperback copies of I Capture the Castle as it's my favourite book of all time and I like some of the covers it comes in. And hate others, it has to be said - particularly the film tie-in.

And now I find myself looking up covers on LibraryThing to find old friends that I've foolishly given away and want to see again.